Exploiting challenges on the way to driverless mobility

On Friday, July 7th, 2017, Ralf Baron, Partner and Global Head of Arthur D. Little’s Travel & Transportation Practice, welcomed our guests to the Executive Roundtable in Munich on the topic of “Autonomous Driving in an Urban Context”. The aim of the event was to provide its participants with the opportunity to be part of an interactive, cross-industry session with exchanges of real-life experiences presented by top management representatives from the automotive, telecommunication, engineering and electronics industries, as well as from technology start-ups.

Consisting of various system components, autonomous driving is a complex initiative that requires close cooperation between different market players. Hence, what is needed is “not only technical engineering, but also financial, social and political concepts,” as Josef Stoll, Associate Director at MHP, a Porsche consulting company, and one of the event’s keynote speakers, put in a nutshell during the group discussions.

Accordingly, the cross-industry audience ranged from classical players of the game, such as OEM and telecommunication executives, up to technology start-ups up and engineering and electronics representatives. This enabled interdisciplinary discussions around challenges and requirements of successful autonomous driving concepts.

The first keynote on autonomous driving was given by Joseph Salem, the Arthur D. Little key account manager of Dubai’s Roads & Transport Authority. He reflected on the company’s official strategy, which comprises Dubai becoming a hub for autonomous driving players in the world and providing its residents with innovative mobility solutions by 2030. To achieve these objectives the authority has recognized the importance of considering the trend from two angles: the infrastructure perspective, which requires new technologies to be set up the right way, and the customer-facing perspective, with services

offered via different channels for a smooth, reliable and exciting customer experience.